


Trust, loyalty and betrayal

by Svynakee



Category: Dragon Age: Origins
Genre: Fantasy Racism, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-12-27
Updated: 2013-12-27
Packaged: 2018-01-06 07:37:24
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,753
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1104166
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Svynakee/pseuds/Svynakee
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>There's not much an elf can amount to, and not many friends a mage can make. In the end, you make do. Overall, for an elf, you think that you didn't do so bad. </p>
<p>(Male elf mage warden, going through the first bits of the game, so spoilers 'til Ostagar.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	Trust, loyalty and betrayal

**Author's Note:**

> So I wrote from my own experiences and my own headcanon, mostly. I mean I was so suspicious when Mouse turned into a guy I was like NU-UH, YOU A DEE-MAHN! Honestly I am too paranoid. I wonder how my real-life friends put up with me. Written in the 'you did this, you thought that' style, and rather disjointed, so if that gives you a headache don't read it.

The templars stand ready to cut you down, always fearing the chance that the result of the Harrowing wouldn’t be a mage, but an abomination. A monster from the Fade, created by magic.

You know that it doesn’t take magic to create monsters, and that abominations walked all throughout Ferelden. And the templars - and everyone else – turns a blind eye to them.

But now, you decide, is not the time for depressing thoughts. Now was the time to prove yourself, and put your past one more step behind you.   
________________________________________

You were young when they took you. At first, you didn’t know it was because of your magic – you had just assumed that these humans were the same as all the rest, and that this time you just happened to be unlucky. Well, even more unlucky than the rest. No elf was born lucky in the city.

The other children being transported to the tower were frightened, crying and screaming until all you could hear was despair. You were frightened, too. One of the things that frightened them the most was the loss of their freedom; all mages were locked up in this Circle Tower, or killed. 

It occurs to you that they could not have taken your freedom, because you had none to begin with. It makes you smile a smile that has the other children edging away, whispering and pointing. But then, you are used to it. You were always fated to be an outsider.  
________________________________________

The importance of the phylactery was explained in a long-winded speech by an armour-clad Templar, using big words and full of gory details about what happened to apostates. All the new apprentices are gathered here, and a mage with golden hair and a too-bright smile begins the process. You are vaguely aware of all this, but mostly, you feel empty. There is still pain from knowing that you will never see your family again, and the shock of finding out that you are to spend the rest of your life in the Tower, but mostly it is dull and you feel numb. You have heard of the Tranquil, and wonder if you are starting to become one. 

Soon, your turn comes, and you walk obediently towards the mage. And that’s when you see it.

The smile suddenly has too many teeth, and there is a glint in his eye that you remember all too well. You almost sense the change as soon as he lays eyes on your pointed ears – you know this feeling. It would fill the air of the alienage sometimes, when a human lord felt the need to flaunt his power. When an elf would run into a drunkard, trying to hurry home after backbreaking work in the city. When insults were not enough, and sharp and pointed rocks suddenly appeared in the hands of those you had ‘angered’. 

He lifts the dagger to draw blood, and you lash out instinctively. Your too-thin legs delivers a kick that doesn’t hurt so much as surprise him, and that fake smile twists into an expression that truly reflects just what he thinks of the elf child at his heels. You don’t even have time to flinch as magic rips through your body, screaming as pain lights up every nerve. Through your tears you can see that his smile has returned; this time it is a thin, self-satisfied curl of his lips.

As you lay curled up on the floor, he reaches down again, both of you convinced that you have no fight left in you. 

The wave of magic sends him flying. The brief hope that flares in your heart dies as you hear the drawing of swords, and you turn to face the templars, all too eager to do their duty. Again, the numbness takes over you, and you decide to let the exhaustion overcome you in an attempt to make death a little less painful. 

As they raise their swords – does it really take two templars to kill a mere child? – another mage stops them, with words and a great waving of hands. They begin to argue, but eventually the mage wins out. But you still struggle. You can’t help it. Through the pain and tiredness and the haze of residual magic, all you can see is another human wielding a dagger and all you can think is _no no no NO_ -

The blade hits the ground in a clatter as sharp teeth dig into the mage’s wrist. You crawl away again, curl up, make yourself small. You know that no one is going to save you now. But then, you never expected them to. No one saves an elf.

There’s laughter now – odd and metallic from the helmeted templars, nervous and unsure from the young apprentices, and a greasy, cold sniggering that you assume is from the mage you flung across the room. Your auburn hair is a mess and the tears blur your vision. But your pointed ears are fine, so they twitch in surprise when you hear a young voice say, “He’s only startled, sir. I’m sure he’ll be cooperative when he’s calmed down.”

Light footsteps cross over to where you huddle, and arms wrap around you and hold you close, dark hair tickling your nose. A hand begins to stroke your head gently, while another fumbles a bit before the boy begins to pat your back. It feels awkward, and strange and _wonderful_. You don’t care who he is, or why he’s doing it, because you feel grateful and safe and it doesn’t matter if this is real or some comforting farce. After a minute or so of this sloppy soothing, the boy once again explains the importance of the phylacteries which you don’t pay attention to, instead choosing to snuggle tighter to this mystery saviour in case he disappears in a puff of smoke. When the second mage – “my mentor”, the boy says – attempts to extract blood again, you comply. The pain from the cut is actually quite bearable, and the whole ordeal is over quickly – although not quickly enough, as Jowan would repeatedly remind you in your later years, because you practically broke his ribs while you clung to him. For a human, you think, he is not so bad. 

That night, after you have been shown the library and the storerooms and the beds and everything else that was needed, they send you off to sleep. In the morning, they find you curled up in Jowan’s bed. There are some harsh words and a smack on the hands when the older apprentices find you, and some giggles from the younger ones. The next day, it happens again, and again, until the mages are called in and finally they decide to just call it “a harmless elvish tradition” and leave it at that. Jowan does not complain, and the whispers and laughter mean nothing to you as they are no different to what all your people have had to endure for far longer than you have lived. In the end, what puts an end to it is when your bed is given over to one of the next batch of apprentices, and the unlucky lad finds himself a midnight arcane bolt practice target. By then, your magical abilities had grown to the point that the mages were willing to overlook the victim’s distinct lack of eyebrows and just firmly explain to you that if you didn’t use it, then it wasn’t yours. 

In the end, it was Knight-Commander Greagoir that helped you make friends. Anyone could make friends when they were with Greagoir – or rather, when they were against him. No amount of jealousy or racial prejudice could stand between the apprentices and their hatred of Greagoir and what he embodied. Within the Circle, away from all the people they were not supposed to harm, the templars were a constant reminder of the fact that they were ripped from their homes and imprisoned here, and that they were feared and hated and reviled. That they were seen as abominations (Jowan’s story is unsurprisingly and painfully common, and many children where all but abandoned for their ‘gift’). Slowly, the things you had in common with the others in the Tower grew; over time, the shape of your ears meant nothing in the face of the fact that you were a mage, and a damn good one at that, and that this was your home, and that everyone here from the First Enchanter to the newest apprentice was your family. There was no outside among the outsiders.

Over the years you learn about Jowan, just as you learn about magic and letters and herbs. Unlike you, his magic is weak. It is pitiful, really, but you do not tell him about your thoughts; not enough magic to become a good mage through practice, but just enough to be lumped with the rest of the ‘monsters’ in the Tower. He has an odd sort of envy that’s generic and not too malicious, and a tendency to worry about what will happen if he doesn’t improve his lackluster skills. You wonder sometimes if being close with you, the star apprentice in your group, has contributed to it. He also shows brief bouts of what could be called bravery, but also labelled as desperation or recklessness. But first and foremost, he is a friend.  
________________________________________

When he asks about the Harrowing, you tell him that it was exactly that. He seems nervous; he has been oddly tense for a while now, and because of your mentor suddenly ramping up your workload a few weeks ago (which you now know was in preparation of your Harrowing) you have not been able to discern what it was about. 

After a heartwarming and reassuring greeting of “DIE, DEMON!” which does nothing to help his nerves, Jowan informs you that the First Enchanter wants to see you. You are not surprised, with the summons or the fact that you completed the Harrowing in record time. What you are surprised about is the lack of that flash of jealousy in the man’s eyes, like every other time you got ‘special treatment’. There is something very wrong here, and it bothers you not to know it. Jowan seems himself again when he reveals his distress over not having his own Harrowing yet, and as always your words do nothing to comfort him. For all that you excel at, that is one thing Jowan does better than you. Instead, you sort of coldly suggest that he should volunteer to be made Tranquil if he fears his Harrowing chances so much, and mentally slap yourself. After that conversation, you decide that you should not keep the First Enchanter waiting, and leave.  
________________________________________

As you make your way through the caverns and let out the occasional high-pitched scream at spiders the size of cows (actually, you wouldn’t know – you’ve never seen a cow), you think back on your Harrowing. Overall, it was not as bad as you expected. You think that Mouse’s betrayal didn’t hurt as much as the demon would have hoped – it had made quite a few mistakes. You were suspicious from the start, of course, and it was ridiculous to assume that you would put so much trust in a human that you had just met. Of all people, you knew that such foolishness resulted in pain and suffering. Also, you always did have a secret love of riddles. Jowan never got the knack of them, and you still remember that little ‘duel’ you had as boys that had ended up with him blurting “what’s in my pockets?” (you still managed to guess about two-thirds of its contents). The Fade was strange, but not horrifying. You could still remember a vague impression of horror, which was ramshackle buildings, and walls that blocked the sun and a hunger that gnawed at your belly.

Meeting a Grey Warden was interesting, and you decided that for a human and an outsider, Duncan was rather likable. Somehow, your conversation turns to blood magic (could those rumors you’ve been hearing be true?) and he spins a gory tale of a chance encounter as a child. While you do not doubt Duncan’s words, you cannot help but feel that it sounds a bit too much like the stories apprentices whisper on rainy nights to frighten one another. Always full of monsters and demons and claims that it really did happen, to the brother’s friend of this guy I knew… always with a hint of fantasy and unlikely enough that the scares were more fun than terrifying. You want to tell Duncan that true terror isn’t blood magic or apostate mages, but cruel men and dirty streets of diseases and the knowledge that you will never change, never be one of them, always fated to live in filth and starvation and fear. Instead, you politely inquire about the Grey Wardens and the Blight, with only your comment on how the blood mage of his memories may have committed those gruesome murders out of self-defense the only hint of your feelings. 

You always were a coward like that. It is another way you are inferior to Jowan, unwilling to speak your true mind. He never noticed, but then you have always tried to hide your weaknesses. 

When Jowan asks for help, you readily give it to him. Lily comes as a surprise to you (since when did Jowan begin keeping secrets?) and you offer your condolences to her for such an unfortunate pick of partners. Even that doesn’t snap Jowan out of his nervous funk, and you soon learn why – your comment was rather more accurate than you would have liked. The templars are always happy to have one less mage in the world, and you agree to help Jowan escape his fate. As you head off to acquire a Rod of Fire, you realize that you don’t actually believe Jowan’s denial of being a blood mage. It all adds up – the jitteriness, the refusal of your help in magical studies, the certainty of being denied the Harrowing. As much as you dislike Greagoir, you know that he would not sign an apprentice’s death warrant purely on suspicion. Although, you never managed to fully trust humans. Even Jowan. But one thing you could do was be loyal to him.  
________________________________________

Loyalty, however, only went as far as breaking his phylactery. Just like that, the Circle goes from a home to a prison again, and you happily seize the key that Duncan offers. On top of saving your life, becoming a Grey Warden also offers something a mage and elf could rarely get: respect. Greagoir seems angry that you have betrayed your former superiors with no remorse, but in fact you have neither that nor regret. In the end, you suppose that Jowan’s betrayal (if it could be called that), didn't effect you as much as the others would have thought. Overall, the outcome was not as bad as you had expected (which would have been ‘death, with a side of torture’.)

As you arrive in Ostagar, a mage named Wynne comments on how the Blight brings people together, in a darkly humorous way. As you take note of the elvish servants scurrying around, you take note that ‘together’ did not include ‘as equals’. The outside world is refreshing, however, and you are delighted to meet your first dog, however sick and tainted it may be. You hope to see a cow, but meet the king instead. The only two things you register about him are ‘human’ and ‘a bit of an idiot’. You also meet a Grey Warder named Alistar.

At first, the facts that he was a former templar and at odds with mages made you dislike him, but soon you realise than beneath all these superficial facts (he didn’t choose to be a templar, which makes him better, you suppose) he seemed like a pretty nice person, with a light-hearted and helpful personality. You do not trust him, however. You have learned too much for that… yet.

As you head over to Duncan to join the Grey Wardens through yet another secret and vaguely dangerous ritual (you feel certain that Alistar hinted at the chance of death), you reflect on the fact that they will be your new family. 

And as you continue to make light conversation with this cheerful and amiable former-templar, for a human, you think, he is not so bad.

**Author's Note:**

> Man, the fantasy racism in this game really slaps you in the face. I'm planning on topping off my double whammy hate combo of elf+mage with becoming a blood mage myself just so everyone can be prejudiced against me. Yay! Also, I am well aware that Greagoir and indeed many of the templars aren't evil. But the fact is that when kids at school can hate a teacher just because of homework and the fact that he teaches maths, imagine what they would think if he also called them abominations and had the authority to pretty much murder them. Oh and kept them locked in the school 24/7.


End file.
